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First a look at the missing countries... Denmark is not represented for the first time since 2010. Aalborg Pirates having won both the league and cup titles, this made either Herning Blue Fox (regular season champion and playoffs finalist) or Rungsted Ishockey (Bronze game winner and cup finalist) as prime candidates to represent the Metal Ligaen this year... There will be no Romanian team either which is a first in the tournament's history, despite SC Csíkszereda winning their first national crown since 2013... Finally Estonia is not back after Narva's one-off last season, I guess Viking remembers its visa problems back in 2013...

To replace them, Medvescak Zagreb will be the big draw this season. The Croatian club won (again) the national championship through its reserve and will align its EBEL team, reminding some of Donbass' VHL/KHL years... This mark the first time the Austrian-based league will be represented since Red Bull Salzburg won the big plate in 2010... Slovenia is back with Acroni Jesenice after a year hiatus... As well as Israel with HC Bat Yam...

Great to see Vikingar following in Esja's footstep...

I guess the CHL board has been pressuring the IIHF a bit... Ritten Sport has been pushed down the second round while GKS Katowice has been brought up into the third, despite Italian teams being historically more performant than the Polish ones in this competition...

katowice lost in the polish league finals, which means they can play in CC as polish champion has spot in the CHL.

Same scenario in Denmark where the champion gets a CHL spot as well... Sure Herning was the playoffs finalist and Rungsted finished only third but that was the pick the Danish NA went with so why not... especially when another club will line up a totally different team from the one who got the qualification in the first place...